


Under a Blood Red Moon

by octoberland



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 08:45:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7708549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octoberland/pseuds/octoberland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the fight on the causeway in CA:TWS. An AU of how things could have gone differently. Two soldiers finding their way back to each other, but things always get worse before they get better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under a Blood Red Moon

**Author's Note:**

> This is set mid Winter Soldier and ignores everything after the causeway and also completely ignores Civil War. That being said, I try to keep it canon while also adding my own flavor to it. It's not very shippy though you can see Steve/Bucky if you squint or even Steve/Nat, Nat/Clint. I honestly don't know if I'll continue it though I do have more written and I know where I want it to go. I just don't know if anyone would be interested and I have so many other things I need to finish. But I at least wanted to get this bit up and out there. I have not done any writing of any sort for a very long time due to some real life circumstances. However, my life circumstances have recently changed which means I will finally have more time to get back into writing. It's bittersweet though, so please bear with me. I'm dealing with some grief issues and because of that I'm just working on tidying up my documents first before producing new material. Also, at the moment this is rated M for the mentions of violence and general adult (war, brain washing, etc) themes but if I continue that may change.
> 
> This was not beta'd and no copyright infringement is intended. Marvel owns these characters. I just like playing with them.

Steve stood on the roof of his building looking up at the sky. It was a balmy spring night. The evening breeze swept across his skin, not unlike the soft shallow breaths of a lover deep in sleep. All was quiet now. Most of the city slept, most of them, but not him, not ever him. The only noise was the occasional purr of an engine a few streets over as cars passed on the main thoroughfare. And the only light, aside from the distant glare of streetlights, was from the fat full moon above.

He’d been told tonight’s moon was a rare sight, the first in a tetrad of lunar eclipses…a blood moon. He watched as shadow slid across the full white expanse of dead rock floating in the sky, long lost sister cast out violently eons ago, watched as she transformed from bright white to shadowy crimson. He thought of the man he’d fought earlier that day, the one that looked so much like his friend. 

Bucky.

_Who the hell is Bucky?_

He’d say it was impossible but all he had to do was look in a mirror to know that wasn’t true. Anything was possible in this new world he’d woken to. Aliens, false gods, metal men. 

_They call him the Winter Soldier. He’s a ghost. You’ll never find him._

A rustle of fabric just then, and Steve turns, startled, almost. _Speak of the devil_ , he thinks. Devil in a red dress, devil with hair like fire to match the burning in her heart.

“Can’t sleep?” she asks.

Steve shrugs. He’s leaning against the brick wall separating him from the street below. Jeans slung low and tight t-shirt hugging company manufactured muscles.

“Thought I’d take in the show,” he replies, nodding up at the red moon.

Natasha approaches slowly, leans her slight frame against the dusty and rust stained bricks. The loose threads of her sweater catch on the rough stones but she pays no mind. Instead she looks up at the sky, thoughtful. The fingers of her right hand play with the charm dangling from the chain around her neck when she speaks next.

“We’re all looking at the same moon,” she says.

“I don’t follow,” says Steve as he looks at her.

She spares him a glance and then looks back up at the moon. “It’s something someone told me once. Right now, at this very second, the person who was hired to kill us is looking at this moon. Or maybe the person we’ve been ordered to kill.”

Steve shifts, turns to face her.

“Or maybe a past lover,” she continues, “Or a future one.” She looks at him. “And we’re all thinking the same thing.”

Steve’s brow creases as he tries to parse the meaning of her words.

“We’re thinking it looks beautiful. We’re thinking we’re safe, in this quiet moment looking at the sky.”

Natasha turns her head, scanning the cityscape, searching.

“Problem is,” She stops fingering the charm, lets her hand drop and steps away from the wall, “we’re never really safe.”

Steve crosses his arms in front of him.

“Nat, what’s going on?”

She smiles weakly. “Nothing,” She heads for the door leading to the stairwell. “I couldn’t sleep.” She pauses. “I’m worried about a friend. That’s all.”

_Meanwhile…_

The Soldier had his sight trained on the target, finger ready and itching. It was easier than he’d expected, so easy to track the man they called Captain, like a wounded deer leaving a blood trail through the forest. He didn’t even try to hide his tracks.

_Your mission…mission…_

The word bounced around his head like a bullet, painful and loud in his skull. It transformed with every pass as his mind chewed on it and spat up memories the men in the lab coats tried to make him forget.  
He remembered the smell of popcorn, the taste of cotton candy in his mouth and the weight of a girl in his arms. He felt the kick of a rifle hard against his shoulder, the scent of weapons fired and the lick of flames against his skin, sharp and stinging. He remembered dancing, and a midnight kiss, and somehow, inexplicably, he remembered the man standing in the crosshairs of his weapon, remembered him the same way one recalls part of a dream but not all of it. His memories were like the shadows that slid across the moon that night: blurry and dark, eclipsed by the work of the machines that stripped him of identity, making him more efficient, more lethal. 

His finger rested on the trigger, pushed and pulled the tiniest of fractions, torn between duty and the desire to know his past self, to know the truth.

The thin line of his lips tightened. His finger began to press down. He was going to do it. 

He would have, if the door to the roof had not opened at that very moment.

The woman from earlier, the one that had almost bested him, approached the target. He could see them speaking, could see that it was casual, filed this information away for later. He watched as they spoke, too far away to discern their words. He saw as she looked up at the sky and he followed her gaze. The moon hung red and fat in the sky, a blood moon they called it, a hunter’s moon. 

When he looks back he sees that she’s leaving, sees her turn to speak once more, and then sees his target embrace the woman, arms wrapped tight around her, chin resting on the top of her head. He feels something, something he can’t entirely identify. He lowers his weapon and watches as they leave the roof together, the man’s hand resting lightly on the woman’s shoulder as they go. He has another sliver of a memory, of wrapping his strong arm around a slight shoulder, bony and thin, the stench of garbage permeating the air.

_Sometimes I think you like getting beat up…_

He doesn’t know who said it, doesn’t recognize the voice. It’s another piece of a puzzle that doesn’t seem to fit and he wonders briefly if the doctors have poked around his head one too many times, if everything in there isn’t just some scrambled, irretrievable mess now. He wonders how long before he’s the target, before they decide he’s a risk and not an asset. He looks up at the moon again, can just see the edge of bright white sneaking past the Earth’s shadow. Tonight seems like as good a night as any to try and learn the truth.

He climbs down from his hiding spot, switches out his gear from military to civilian, and heads for the museum.

_Later..._

He’s on his way to the museum when he gets the message.

_New mission. Rendezvous point. Now._

He almost ignores it, almost slams on the break and swears, almost makes the turn onto Rt.1 that would take him out of there and away, but he doesn’t. The synapses in his brain fire, sending pain signals throughout his body, reminding him that his life is not his own, that he serves a greater purpose.

_Unity through compliance, victory through unity._

How many nights he’d heard those words, a lullaby for soldiers like him; but there were no soldiers like him. No other man had been able to withstand the trials he’d been subjected to. None had survived save him.  
When he’d first woken he’d been like a newborn: all instinct and no memory, no comprehension of what any of it actually meant. They raised him on the teat of Mother Russia, spoke to him tales of bullets and bombs and honor, instilled in him a Pavlovian response to stimuli so that he went to the chair willingly, opened his mouth like a good dog waiting for a treat. Each time he braced himself for the currents of electricity that would dull his confusion and erase all errant thought till there was nothing left but obedience. Free will was chaos. Emotions were anarchy. 

Each time they put him on ice it’s like a little death, empty and cold. He does not dream. There is no God to welcome him and no devil to damn him. He remembers less and less every time he wakes until there is only empty space waiting to be filled. He is very good at taking orders now, very good at saying “Yes, Sir” and “No, Sir” and nodding his head at just the right time in just the right way. For decades his faith has rested in the hands of his makers; his altar is built from corpses, his incense is the scent of a well-oiled gun. The flash from his rifle’s muzzle has taken the place of candles, and fresh-spilt blood, his holy water. In the dark he hears their whispered prayers…

_Hail Hydra…_

But that seed has never quite taken root in him the way they would have liked it to. He has no memory of the man named Johann Schmidt. In fact, he has no memory of the war at all. Hitler, Normandy, Pearl Harbor: these things mean nothing to him. They are passages in books. They are of no consequence to him.

And yet.

He knows his target; knows him because it has been drilled into him. War hero. S.H.I.E.L.D. operative. Enemy.

And yet.

He switches on the radio, tries to fill his mind with anything but the nagging that he feels at the back of his skull.

For a moment his vision switches. No more asphalt, no more white lines and metal guard rails, no more glares from the streetlights bouncing off the hood of his car. Now he is standing in a great hall. The air is warm and smells of sweat. There are streamers hanging from the ceiling and little lights that look like stars. The music is loud. He can almost feel it in his bones, does feel the person next to him nudge him hard. He looks up at the man, tall, blonde, and built; he's ready to strike the man, but something stops him. He sees the man staring across the room, follows his gaze till it lands on a beautiful brunette with ruby red lips and fair skin like fresh cream. Finds his thoughts suddenly traveling a path seldom indulged, but then the man next to him speaks.

"That's her," says the man, and he's all puppy dog eyes watching her as she makes her way round the room. "Whad'ya think?" he asks, taking his eyes off her for the merest fraction of a second. "You think a girl like that…and a guy like me?" He doesn't even finish the question, and the man who was once called James Buchanan Barnes feels a familiar fondness for the stranger standing next to him, has a recollection, vague as it is, of many such similar conversations. Before he can stop himself, he speaks, and it's like a dream, like watching yourself jumping off a cliff and not being able to do anything about it.

"That's above my pay grade, pal," he replies while slapping the man on the back. He shakes his head and laughs and heads for the door to get some air.

He's pushing through the throng of people when he hears a strange noise. At first he thinks it's a siren, that bombs are on the way, but no one else seems to notice. The sound grows louder. It's invasive, like it's coming from inside his head. He covers his ears and squeezes his eyes shut.

When he opens his eyes there's a car barreling past him laying on its horn. A young woman leans out the passenger side window and flips him the bird, the wind batting her hair all around her face. He has half a mind to follow them but in the split second all of this takes he realizes he's about to go off the road and into a guardrail. He swerves a sharp left earning him another beeping horn from yet another car.

He takes a few deep breaths once he's settled back between the lines and then shuts the radio off. He's not far from his destination now; seedy roadside motel where nobody asks questions and no one cares who you are.

His handler is waiting for him when he gets there. He's one of the suits, and oh how many times the Soldier has wondered what it would be like to wrap his metal fingers around that neck and squeeze until the man's eyes bulged out of their sockets and all life ebbed from him. It was the suits that put him in the chair, the suits and lab coats and bureaucrats that ushered him into the cryo-chamber and refused to answer his questions. Most days that was okay. Most days he didn't mind following orders. There was a certain peace to be had in confinement, a tranquility in subservience, but today was not one of those days. Today he had not completed his mission and it ate at him, worried his insides like a bird picking at a loose string. He could feel himself unraveling.

He pulled up, parked, and stepped out of the vehicle. The man, whose name he did not even know, stood outside his door. No pleasantries were exchanged. In fact, the man barely looked at him. Instead, he pulled out his phone and held it up for the Soldier to see. The first screen was an address and a set of coordinates. The man swiped the screen and a photo of his new target appeared.

The Soldier looked from the screen to his handler then back at the screen, brows furrowed. 

"Is there a problem?" his handler asked.

It was faint, the tiniest of movements, but the Soldier noticed his handler's finger twitch just above his belt. Hydra had a failsafe for everything. Even him. 

They stared at each other, the air suddenly thick between them, and it wasn't until the soldier spoke that his handler finally breathed.

"No. No problem, Sir" he said.

"Good," said his handler, backing away.

This was how they did things. He was never given paperwork, never given anything that could be traced. No details were ever sent by phone. He was allowed to know only what he absolutely needed to know. He was, as he knew some called him, a ghost; transient, intangible, a shadow.

And so, as he walked back towards his vehicle, he wondered why they would need him to kill someone who was already so close to being a ghost themselves.


End file.
